Madonna Mini Biography

Madonna (born Madonna Louise Ciccone on August 16, 1958) is an American recording artist, dancer, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan and raised in Rochester Hills, Michigan, Madonna moved to New York City in 1977, for a career in modern dance. After performing as member of the pop musical groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her self-titled debut album in 1983, and then produced three consecutive number-one studio albums on the Billboard 200 in the 1980s and four more since year 2000.

Madonna is known for exploring religious symbolism and sexual themes in her work. This drew criticism from the Vatican in the late 1980s. In 1992, she founded an entertainment company, Maverick, which published a book of photographs (Sex). She also released a studio album (Erotica) and starred in a film (Body of Evidence) with erotic themes. These works generated negative publicity and coincided with a fall in commercial sales in the 1990s. Madonna's career was revived in 1998, when the release of her album Ray of Light garnered critical acclaim.

Madonna has acted in 22 films. Although most failed critically and commercially, she earned a Golden Globe Award for her role in the 1996 film Evita. Madonna is divorced from actor Sean Penn and gave birth to a daughter, Lourdes Maria (also known as Lola) in 1996 by her personal trainer Carlos Leon before she was married to film director Guy Ritchie for eight years. She and Ritchie have two sons, Rocco and David Banda, a Malawian boy they adopted in 2006, which caused media allegations they violated that country's adoption laws.

She has been regarded as "one of the greatest pop acts of all time" and dubbed the "Queen of Pop" by various sources. She is ranked by the Recording Industry Association of America as the best-selling female rock artist of the twentieth century and the second top-selling female artist in the United States with 63 million certified albums. Guinness World Records list her as the world's most successful female recording artist of all time and the top-earning female singer in the world with an estimated net worth of US$490 million, having sold over 200 million records worldwide. On March 10, 2008, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Madonna's 2008 Sticky & Sweet Tour is the highest grossing concert tour by a solo artist. In the United Kingdom, she is the most successful female in the singles chart history and has more number one singles than any other female solo artist. In 2008, she surpassed Elvis Presley as the artist with most top ten hits in the history of Billboard Hot 100. In 2007, Madonna was listed by VH1 as eighth in the Greatest Women of Rock & Roll. On March 10, 2008, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

There has been speculation about her relationships with other women, including Naomi Campbell and Sandra Bernhard. The book Sex depicts her in sexual situations with men and women, and she has been credited with educating people about bisexuality.[225] Madonna has been criticized by the Roman Catholic Church, particularly during her "Who's That Girl Tour", "Blond Ambition World Tour" and "Confessions" tours. The New York Times journalist and author Gay Talese relates this to her Italian ancestry – people from Pacentro have been in a long tradition of rebellion against Catholics. Madonna had her son Rocco baptized in a Presbyterian Church.

Madonna has generated academic interest. Interdisciplinary research and publications address her relationship to and place within commodity culture, the mass-media spectacles she creates, and the iconography of minority groups such as gay and lesbian people, which she uses in videos such as those for "Vogue", "Like a Prayer", "La Isla Bonita" and "Borderline". These publications were so extensive that in the 1990s, academics would refer to "Madonna Studies" as a sub-field of media studies.

In 2006 a new water bear species (Latin: Tardigrada), Echiniscus madonnae, was named after Madonna. The paper with the description of E. madonnae was published in the international journal of animal taxonomy Zootaxa in March 2006 (Vol. 1154, pages: 1–36). The authors' justification for the name of the new species was: "We take great pleasure in dedicating this species to one of the most significant artists of our times, Madonna Louise Veronica Ritchie." The Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) number of the species is 711164.